TERESA CABRERA
v.
ALBERTO CABRERA MIRANDA
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A party may not circumvent the one-year time limitation in Florida Family Law Rule of Procedure 12.540 by filing a separate declaratory judgment action in the family division rather than bringing a timely motion in the original dissolution action.
[1] A party may not file a separate declaratory judgment action to challenge a marital settlement agreement as a means of circumventing the one-year time limitation prescribe…
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceFormer Wife filed a declaratory judgment action in August 2024 seeking to invalidate a Marital Settlement Agreement approved in a November 2021 final …
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Third District Court of Appeal State of Florida
Opinion filed April 30, 2025. Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.
________________
No. 3D24-1993 Lower Tribunal No. 24-15187-FC-04 ________________
Teresa Cabrera, Appellant,
vs.
Alberto Cabrera Miranda, Appellee.
An Appeal from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Ivonne Cuesta, Judge.
Law Office of Alan I. Karten, PLLC, and Alan I. Karten (Boynton Beach), for appellant.
Gastesi Lopez & Mestre PLLC, and Raul R. Lopez and Jennifer M. Vazquez, for appellee.
Before EMAS, SCALES, and LOBREE, JJ.
PER CURIAM.
2
Appellant Teresa Cabrera (Former Wife) appeals the family court’s dismissal, with prejudice, of a lawsuit captioned “First Amended Complaint for Declaratory Judgment.” In this lawsuit, initially filed on August 12, 2024, Former Wife seeks to invalidate her August 19, 2021 Marital Settlement Agreement (MSA) with appellee Alberto Cabrera Miranda (Former Husband). The MSA was approved as part of the November1, 2021 final judgment entered in the parties’ marriage dissolution action (lower tribunal case number 2021-020318-FC-4). Former Husband moved to dismiss Former Wife’s lawsuit, arguing that, because the parties’ MSA was actively being litigated in two cases pending in the circuit court’s civil division,1 Former Wife should have brought her claims in those cases, and that by bringing a separate action in the family division, Former Wife essentially was forum shopping. Former Husband’s dismissal motion also alleged that Former Wife’s lawsuit was brought as a separate declaratory judgment action – rather than a motion filed in the dissolution action to invalidate the parties’ MSA – in an attempt to avoid the time limitations prescribed in Florida Family Law Rule of Procedure 12.540.2
brought within a reasonable period of time but, in most cases, not later than one year from the rendition of the final judgment. Former Wife’s August 2024 lawsuit was filed well over one year after the parties’ MSA was approved in the November1, 2021 final judgment in the dissolution action.